Forbidden Fruit
by MerryWeathers
Summary: Elphaba always loved apples.


I know I should have finished Apart at the Seams, but this just, well- it came to me...and there's no explanation for it, either; Just, a random idea that had been nagging at me for the past half an hour (probably because I have had the unquenchable urge to go bobbing for apples.) Enjoy.

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Wicked- It'd be awesome if I did, wouldn't it?**

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Elphaba always loved apples.

Well...perhaps love is too strong a word. There was few things she did love; She had definately loved her sister, and loved Fiyero, perhaps even right from meeting him the day he arrived at Shiz.In a way- I think she loved me to...loved the friendship she shared. For sure- she loved freedom enough to give anything for it.

So...apples was probably more of a like than a love. When we shared a room, I'd always come back from a party, or an extra lesson, a book propt up between her elbow and the post of her bet, toughtfully nibbling on the skin. I'd glipse her skirting the ground lawns, on the way to class, taking more ravenous and horribly unladylike naws. Most of the time, that was all she had for breakfast: surpassing things like pasteries which I was so fond of in my school days. Red ones, yellow ones...ones with matching sin-green skin. She'd eat them at any time.

I, however, could never even like them. They were always too tart, or to plain- I hated the feel of their juice running down my chin the odd chance that would leave sticky, apply trains down my chin and leave me with a simply icky feeling all day. If I did, I always had to cut them- into equal pieces, and then peel the skins from them, and then, take tiny little mouse-like bits from them. A process that Elphaba always watched- never laughing, but with this odd raised eye-brow stare and half smile that I always took as her show of amusement.

Her love of apples, I can only guess, never ceased- even though I was hardly around until the very end. Sometimes, I imagine her sitting in the little servant's kitchen off the grand hall where she died, where she'd locked away Miss Gale- just sitting there, perhaps shrouded in natural shadows and with a small flickering candle in front of her, taking thoughtful bites into the soft flesh, and taking a insane amount of time to chew it, and swallow, before taking another hunk- not carring if any juice dotted her chin, and perhaps sitting there with that same pensive expression she usually had when troubled.

That was so long ago though- and I wasn't there to witness it, so how was I to know? One year, seven months. Actually, One year, seven months, sixteen days. It's actually harder not to keep track. It's been that long since Elphie left me.

Too Long.

Someday, whenever I can escape away, I would like to go and visit her castle- make sure it was at least still standing: Fix it up a bit, and keep it save. Like one would tend to a graveyard, I would tend to what was left of Kiamo Ko.

For now, though- I've done what I could. Out in the back of the former Wizard's Castle, my new home, is a rather nice garden. For the most part, the servants tend to it: pruining leaves, picking weeds, watering flowers, and feeding the birds (and, now, a few Birds) that stay in the center pond. It is a beautiful place, green, like the rest of the city, but bursting with oh, so many other colors. All of them intertwined.

There is one spot, however, right by the back, marble-stone fence, which I specifically tend to. The only thing there so far is a small bench made for one, and a frequently overturned patch of dirt.

With Elphaba dead, the Wizard sent away, Morrible impressioned, and Miss Gale and her dog returned home. I had gone out and celebrated all over Oz- My homeland, the Vinkus Kingdom, Center Munch, the city itself- each in their own way had a uproarious wake for a women they never cared for in death, and cared even less for in life. I stood, and smiled, and laughed, feasted, and danced with all of them- as stiff as if I'd worn a porcelain mask. Some noticed: but most citizens didn't bat an eye- they'd been dead themselfs for so long, how would I have expected them to notice some discomfort on my behalf?

When I returned, weeks after, I came to this spot, and burried something- much like I did as a young child- but not to redig it up, like a burried treasure as I had done back then while playing in the mud. I burried a small, green bottle, and over covered it, and left it there- the best I could do for Elphie in way of a grave.

And I visit it every day- In fact, there is a set time I leave the stuffier quaters of my office, and I come to share my lunch here. The servants see nothing wrong with it- I tell them I wish to enjoy nature in it's finest, and in truth, it's what I do best here. So I sit, and eat, and replenish the soil over my little plot by leaving seeds of flowers I'd picked, hoping they'd take.

None had, as of a few days ago- but no, as I come today, with one of the younger kitchen girl's accompaning me with my meal, for the first time, I notice a small..well, it looks like a stick, poking up from the ground, which has alread sprouted a small bud of green. Almost immediately, I feel elaited- finally, something is growing here!

The younger Gillkin kitchen maid also noticed it, and pauses to bend down, and touch at the bud and the weak stem on which it grows- for a minute I fear she thinks she's spotted a weed and is going to pull it out, but she simply studies it, and smiles.

"Do you... Do you know what it is?" I ask, tentatively. The girls from Kitchen work often also know of the garden plants- having to know what is herb and weed- poison fruit or good. For a second nothing, and then she nods.

"That I do, Lady Glinda." She replies, " My ma tried to grow these outside her cottage- this is apple."

This stopped me, and unconscious of the hem of my skirt trailing on the ground, I bend down to look at the frail little thing too. Imagine that, this was a little apple tree. Of all the things that could have grown here- peonies and daffodils and grapes...it had to be a seed from the one fruit I hardly ate that took root. In fact, so sparse had I eaten it, I only remember once, in my meals, where I tossed out the tiny almond of seed to the ground, after carefully peelings and slicing a great red, tasteless apple and still leaving half of it to be fed to a wandering swan as I returned to the palace. It had had a one in thousands of seeds chances, and here it was- beginning it's own little tree.

A more fitting memorial- I couldn't even dream of.


End file.
